


i took a step (hoping you might follow)

by foxgloved



Series: trans!alec [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Gay Character, Coming Out, M/M, Meta, Nonbinary Character, Post-Episode: s01e09 Rise Up, Pre-Relationship, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, maybe canon compliant??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 17:44:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6293758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxgloved/pseuds/foxgloved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Alec — should not be here.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	i took a step (hoping you might follow)

**Author's Note:**

> !!!!!! guess who wrote more trans!alec!!!!!!!! i love trans!alec...  & i finally also managed to write something malec-centric? yay i guess? um. anyways. tw for implied homophobia - well, it's more directly stated, but this is p much a meta dump on trans people in the shadowhunter world b/c... well, i won't get into my cc wank here. also nb magnus means a lot to me, too, please join me in this
> 
> title from five for fighting's 'what if'.

Alec — should not be here. Alec is engaged. Alec is going to be saying his _I do_ s to someone he trusts somewhat but doesn't necessarily like; and someone who, if his situation had been better, he wouldn't have gotten down on one knee for. But it is what it is. _The law is hard, but it is the law_ — not that the law is behind this, of course ( _mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_ ), and, well: curiosity killed the cat; and satisfaction brought it back, so here Alec is, listening to a tea kettle whirring in the next room.

Gaudy decorations surround him, wallpaper hastily patched over. His fingers flex across the cool leather of the couch beneath him, any and all bloodstains missing from it. His arm still aches and his chest aches worse, and Alec's brain is in fight-or-flight mode, but he leans back, slips his eyes shut. It's — easy, to find peace here, to listen to the wind whistling outside and for once not have to worry about the lives of the swarms of Shadowhunters in New York. More than less, now, the cunning glint of Lydia Branwell's eyes and Maryse and Robert's rune-less necks dance behind his eyes. It isn't Jace, for once, that appears there, and Alec — doesn't know how to feel about that.

The clearing of a throat snaps his eyes back open, the noise of the tea kettle gone and replaced with an image. Magnus Bane, hovering in the doorway, balancing two cups in his hands. He doesn't say anything as he takes a seat opposite Alec, and Alec plucks one cup from his outstretched fingers, careful not to let his fingers brush against Magnus'. There's something odd, to Magnus. In front of Clary, and Jace, and Izzy, and every other Shadowhunter in the Institute, he'd been put-together, a businesslike air to him. He'd seemed... perfect, to Alec. A pipe dream, when he'd turned and smiled at Alec that first time and it was like planets clicking into place.

Now Alec can see the imperfections to him. The glitter beneath his eyes is smudged, giving way to the dark circles that rest there. His shoulders hold stiffly out on either side of his sharp face, bones creaking as he droops into the chair — relaxed, but still on edge. His fingers are shaking, just enough to rattle the cup he holds out before him, like he's afraid it'll shatter across his carpet; his nails are clipped close to his fingertips, dark polish chipped on each delicate finger. Magnus' clothes are neat, but wrinkled as though he's either worn them for several days on end or kept them in a closet for years. The weak glamour over his eyes keeps flickering: from warm, human brown to slit pupils and glazed gold, brighter than the undertones of his skin. He doesn't seem to notice any of this — or maybe he does, and he's a good actor, but he still cannot meet Alec's eyes.

 _Goodbye, Alexander._ It's a name only Alec's parents have used for him, but it rolls off Magnus' tongue so easily, and settles into him in an odd way.

“Why did you come here?” When Magnus finally speaks, his lips parting just the slightest bit, his wrist quivers, and he sets the cup down, steam curling into the air. His tone carries more than a small hint of exhaustion, and Alec swallows. “You've made your situation clear, I think. And I, mine.”

“Magnus,” Alec starts, reproachful. He stops, and sighs; swigs from his cup. The tea burns as it swishes in his throat, cup hot against his fingers. “I don't — I mean —” He. He doesn't know what to say, not that he's sitting across from Magnus Bane and he's supposed to be getting married but he can't love her, not like that, anyways. “I'm sorry,” he settles on, weak.

“I'm sure you are,” Magnus says, frustratingly patient and — soft. He's gentle, almost, but not patronizing. From anyone else, Alec would bristle at the tone of his voice, would feel they weren't really paying attention to him. With Magnus, he can feel the tension unwinding from his shoulders as he speaks, silky smooth. “Why don't you — tell me a little bit? About yourself.”

Well, Alec hadn't been expecting quite that. He's never liked talking about himself. He's not much of a talker, anyways; and he has nothing about himself to boast about, isn't anything special. He's not — he doesn't think he's _broken_ , nothing like that, and his body isn't wrong but he feels clumsy and odd in it. “Oh,” he says, not sure how to feel about Magnus' question — more like an offer. Magnus' eyes hold no judgment, but Alec's seen calm situations turn deadly in one small blink. “I'm —” (What was the word Clary had used? It had been mundie-only, that was for sure.) “I'm. Trans.” Yes, that. That's the word.

“Oh,” Magnus says, a small echo of Alec's, and for a long moment Alec braces himself for something. For laughter; for yelling; for confusion. “Alexander. Look at me.” His tone is still calming, languid, enough that Alec tilts his chin up to meet his eyes. “I've been alive four hundred years. Gender's a very — how should I put it? — fickle thing.” His eyes glitter, even brighter than the sparkles smeared across his cheeks. “I don't feel completely male, for one. Still partially,” he adds, at Alec's slow blink. “I believe mundanes would refer to me as bigender? Part non-binary, I think. For what else they lack, mundanes are better than us with labels and that sort of thing.”

“So you're not,” Alec says, awkward, and then stumbles to a stop. He feels heat lick across his face, and rubs the side of his neck. Goddammit, he needs to get ahold of the fluttering in his stomach. He's getting married, he tries to tell himself again, even as only a political arrangement — but that all blinks away when Magnus smiles at him, if only for a second before he reaches for his tea.

“How'd your parents react to that?” Magnus asks, and Alec is struck silent for several beats at the genuine curiosity in his voice.

“They used to talk about gay Shadowhunters all the time,” says Alec. The spoken thought spins out unusually light — he means for it to be bitter, angry, as much as he feels about the truth that hangs like a guillotine over him but is never spoken by anyone. “Well. Not all the time. If you're gay, or even bi, and a Shadowhunter, you — and anyone else — don't talk about it.” Alec drops his eyes, unable to take the silent pity sinking into Magnus'. “It's unheard of, for us, to be... trans. And — they didn't know how to react, but. They dealt with it. It was harder, I think, knowing I was into guys but still... wondering. If I was really straight, and a girl, after all.” He takes a heaving breath. “I'm not. I'm a guy. And I'm gay.”

Alec stares at his own hands, counting off the seconds of silence and reeling from the words he'd just spoken, tumbling out of him before he could stop them. He'd said them to himself, of course, in the sanctuary of his own head — where no one was sure to be around the corner with an enhanced hearing rune etched on their arm. Never aloud. Never aloud, because you could never know who was listening in — Izzy had known, but Alec had never _said_ it before; especially not to anyone else.

It's a release: _I'm gay. I'm gay._

His own hearing's shuttered out by the blood rushing in his ears, and so he doesn't hear Magnus standing, jerking when a warm hand presses into his. Cat eyes, dotted with wetness and framed with thin eyelashes, stare back when he looks up — Magnus had given up on the glamour, then. “It's all right,” Magnus murmurs, tone uneven. Alec imagines he doesn't get very many Shadowhunters coming out in his living room, and he swallows around the lump in his throat.

“I broke Jace's nose when he found out about me being trans, you know,” Alec blurts, the only thing he can think to say; and he's rewarded by the corners of Magnus' mouth ticking upwards. He's feeling a bit choked up, so he just slots his fingers between Magnus' and does not think about his parents, or Isabelle on trial, or his fiance doing god-knows-what back at the Institute without his supervision. “We'll figure it out,” he manages, unsure of whether he's trying to convince himself or Magnus. “It's just — hard for me. Right now.”

Magnus breathes out, shakily. “I know, Alexander,” he says, as he rocks back and forth on his heels. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> [~~~](http://cisphobicalec.tumblr.com/)


End file.
